Allison & Lillia – 04

After escaping from the Sou Beil military base, Allison and Wil head off to the twin peak mountains in search of the treasure that can stop the war. Before they can reach their destination though, Benedict arrives and tries to shoot them down. With some nifty maneuvers (i.e. stalling on purpose), Allison is able to get behind Benedict and plaster his plane with paint bullets. Realizing that he would’ve died from Allison’s “attack”, Benedict decides to protect Wil and her by shooting down the other pursuing planes. Afterwards, Benedict asks the two to let him help search for this treasure, since it was old man Walter’s dying wish.

In the mountain cave, the three of them discover the rifle that had been placed as a marker by Walter some 30 years ago. As they proceed along the route explained to them, Allison and the others eventually find themselves in a room with a large mural on the wall. The three of them then realize that the spear in the right person’s hand is seen in Roxche’s crest and that the glowing curved staff in the left person’s hand is seen in Sou Beil’s crest (as a curved short sword). At first, Allison doesn’t believe this is the treasure that will stop the war, but Wil and Benedict quickly explain that it is, since it ties the histories of the two warring nations to a common origin. (Sou Beil and Roxche have been fighting over whose history is the correct one. It turns out it was neither.)

During this revelation, Benedict also realizes that Walter must have taken the most difficult method to preserve this mural during the war and killed his own men who wanted to destroy it. At the time, it was likely that Walter’s men didn’t want to get along with the enemy, but Benedict believes that Walter probably felt the war would have continued onto forms of fighting more devastating than biological weapons if it was destroyed. During the war or shortly just after, people probably wouldn’t have accepted such a contradicting historical revelation; therefore, Walter decided to keep the mural’s discovery to himself for the past 30 years. With the two nations now in an armistice though, Benedict feels that the world can now accept it, so they decide to make the announcement.

Before they can leave though, Colonel Noto and Captain Graz arrive to forcibly take whatever this “treasure” is, but after a shot from Wil (who’s quite a sniper by the way), Graz inadvertently fires at the ceiling and causes it to cave in on both him and Noto. Not too long after, the announcement is made to the world that the 130 year old war is over. Allison and Wil pay a visit to Norma, Walter’s widow, and the three of them reminisce about her late husband.

Next Episode:
「閉ざされた森」 (Tozasareta Mori)
“Secluded Forest”

I was a bit surprised to see this “treasure arc” conclude much earlier than expected; however, at some points of this episode, it felt like the story had been built up for 10+ weeks already and that we were reaching the climax of the series. For that, I have to credit the writers for giving that impression despite having only aired 3 episodes prior. With that said, the dogfights seen on the first half of the episode were pretty exciting for me (being a fan or aerial combat action ever since seeing Top Gun back in the day). Along with the music used in those scenes, there was a real sense of urgency, which added to the overall appeal.

Other than that, I found the sudden appearance of Colonel Noto and Captain Graz in the cave a bit unnecessary, as they died so quickly afterwards. The scene where Allison, Wil, and Norma reminisced about Walter was a bit touching, but I felt there wasn’t enough build-up on his character to be noticably moved by the flashbacks. For a series that has only aired 4 episodes, it’s usually difficult to feel any sort of attachment to a character, but I would say Allison & Lillia did a farily good job in that time frame. In any case, it seems like the story is proceeding along fairly quickly now. The series has captivated my interest after his mini arc, so I’ll continue watching it to see where things go from here. Next episode, it seems like Allison, Wil and Benedict are in some snowy, secluded forest and we see the introduction of a “beautiful girl“.

Does it seem like they’re rushing through the “Allison” portion to get to the “Lillia” material? The plot indeed seems to have progressed at a frighteningly quick pace. I wouldn’t have minded if they spent a couple more episodes, like Divine says, to build the side characters more before rubbing them out.

What I loved about Kino’s Journey was that the anime, no matter how long or how short each individual story was, they took the time to explore the social and philosophical concerns each unique situations raised, and every important person was given ample characterization time. I wouldn’t believe the same author would use such heavy-handed sympathy inducing techniques or generally plow through plot points in such rapid-fire fashion.

I don’t know, I want to enjoy this show very much, but everything seems too fast and too easy to me so far.

It was so… quick… moreover the chars seemed a bit too childish for the context…
I thought the chars would grow more and make some more “experience” about war before discovering how beautiful is peace… how’ll they spend now other 22 episodes?

Honestly, I wish they would have given each novel series its own anime. I just don’t think that 26 episodes is enough to cram so many novels into, especially since Lillia and Toreizu is longer than Allison. That said, I think they are actually going at about the right pace for how many episodes they have. The treasure arch only takes up one novel. Granted, that novel is longer than all the others, but with only 13 episodes to devote to Allison, that leaves them with less than 3 episodes each for the three remaining books. With the number of episodes they are giving each series, they couldn’t have afforded to drag the treasure arch out any longer.

Still, I’m really enjoying this anime so far. I didn’t expect it to be as good as it is since I heard it was more of an adventure story and less of the beautiful philosophical work that Kino no Tabi is. However, I’ve been pleasently surprised by the subtle philosophy apparent throughout the story that is so characteristic of Keiichi Sigsawa. I knew he was a good author, (and though I’ve only read the first volume of Kino no Tabi and summaries of his other works he’s one of my favorite authors) but I’m seriously impressed. I wish someone would bring his books stateside. Someone besides Tokyopop. Because they’ve clearly proved that they can’t handle it. :(